She is 82. She is Manjamma. She is from Karnataka, the cradle of coffee in the country. Her ambition, according to The Telegraph, Calcutta, was to sip a cup of coffee at the Taj Mahal hotel overlooking the Arabian Sea in Bombay.

Her mother had done so 60 years earlier, and since then the dream had been firmly implanted in ajji‘s mind.

On Monday, during a visit to the Gateway of India in the company of her daughter, Sapna, a gynaecologist, and son-in-law Laxman Dandin, Manjamma spotted the five-star hotel and decided to swing in for a cuppa.

Shock: “The hotel wouldn’t let us in because of her sandals,” says Dandin. Manjamma was wearing slippers.

Shocker: “We were treated so shabbily because we are from south India and have dark skin,” says Sapna.

Sure, a sign outside reads, “Rights of Admission Reserved”. But if fair-skinned foreigners wearing slippers and shorts can be saluted by imposing looking durwans; if paan-stained politicians wearing khadi and kolhapuris can be ushered in by managers on all-fours, what’s Taj’s beef with Manjamma?

If M.F. Husain being turned away from Willingdon Club for entering barefoot can be news for our papers and TV stations, will Manjamma’s ignominy be?

13 comments

I remember an incident at a Bangalore pub 180 Proof (now rechristened 1912 and also I guess it is now closed due to some controversy) in st marks road. We had a couple of european employees of my software company visiting us. Our company was owned by a south Indian Textile Gaint based in tirupur. As the cheif operating officer of this firm I was playing host to the european technical staff. Our company chairman (a dark fat south indian Gounder) and five of us (including the two eurpoeans and a North Indian, our chairman and myself) decided to spend the evening in this pub. I went to this pub with our chairman first. The bouncer in the front gate asked us for an entry fee and he was not quite pleased with this dark southie coming to this pub. Little did he realize that the fat dark man was the chairman and 50% owner of a closely held company with a turnover of $120 million. I thought the entry fee was a general rule and we payed brought our entry. On the other hand the two european collegues who had already arrived at the pub were never asked for any entry fee and they were even saluted and received with honor. There was also another junior collegue of mine who wasn’t asked for any entry fee as he was a north indian and had a fair complexion and looked like a bollywood film star. After the party I went up to the manager and made an issue with him about the shabby way he treated south indians and how color and race concious these people were.

Colour is an Indian obsession whether it is in the north or the south. With the exception of Panjabis, Himachalis and Kashmiris, the population up north is also a mix of dark and fair. It’s terrible if people discriminate on color and there should be a law to punish such people for racism.
Also, we don’t respect our own dress and customs much. Formal ware in the Indian context should be Dhoti and slippers or Sari and slippers. We do not have table manners, but floor manners- sitting on the floor and eating with our hands out of a banana leaf or a thatte. We have aped the white man to an extent that we have lost our identities. That’s why we have incidents like this.

SHAME on Taj Mahal Hotels. Shame on Tatas. If they have any decency and sensitivity, Ratan Tata himself should share a cup of coffee at the Taj with Manjamma and apologise, apart from footing the bill. Also, this “Rights of Admission” clause should be modified suitably with shops, hotels, pubs, and other commercial establishments adopting a voluntary code of conduct that bestows respect and dignity to all Indians and senior citizens. I am aware of another cruel instance involving Kids Kemp in Bangalore. A couple with their child were out shopping. When the father enquired about the price of a particular garment, the salesperson gave him a top to bottom glance and said haughtily, “You cannot afford it.” (Adh nimg agalla, bidi).

I suppose Mr Raviraja has used all the journalistic skills implicit in his screen-name to get to the bottom of the Sonia Gandhi connection in this affair.

Much as I sympathise with Manjamma’s dream turning sour, isn’t a private hotel, regardless of the circumstances of its origin, within its rights to bar a guest for not wearing the proper footwear or clothing? If a “public” temple can turn away devotees for not wearing the right dress, can’t a “private” hotel?

Please note that in a lot of these incidents it’s the bloke who’s at the bottom of the ladder who is displaying discriminatory behaviour. Someone who himself might be at the receiving end of such behaviour. Makes for interesting study. A wise man once observed that during the days of slavery in the US, the worst slave masters were the ones, who had themselves been former slaves.

@Prashant
The other commentator has clearly pointed out that improper dress is tolerated in the case of white folks. So it’s just not a question of the rights of these clubs.

Those temples never make any bones about their intolerance while these Tatas seem to be the most hypocritical creatures on Earth!

On one hand they boast to be the most tolerant people and put money on stuff like TISS, TERI and they also do stuff like these.

I don’t care if Taj Mahal Palace or whatever denies entrance to anybody but bloody Tatas and their group should shut their mouth and stop acting like they are heavenly beings who are out to rescue the planet.

I would have simply bought a pair of nice shoes for Manjamma and fulfilled her Coffee wish! Of course when she starts to sip her coffee, I would personally remove the shoes so that she can enjoy her coffee more relaxed. I don’t fight with the ‘rules’ because the ones who implement them are general retards and outright morons. Besides, Indian women love to wear nice well-fitted elegant shoes once in a while.

It is really unfair to drag the issue of entry in to some temple in this case. Temples have their own customs and traditions and they openly proclaim it. We have to note one more thing temples do not claim to be segments of service sectors where you are charged for every thing you get there It is also not wise to blame Tata’s for an isolated incident which may be an act of over zealous hireling to implement the rule both in letter and spirit.. I do concur with Doddi Buddi for his pragmatic observation. After all fulfillment of a long cherished dream of an aged Ajji is important . There is no need to make a big issue out of it.